The present disclosure relates generally to the field of semiconductor manufacturing and, more particularly, to a real time monitoring system of semiconductor manufacturing information.
The semiconductor integrated circuit (IC) industry has experienced rapid growth. Technological advances in IC materials and design have produced generations of ICs where each generation has smaller and more complex circuits than the previous generation. However, these advances have increased the complexity of processing and manufacturing ICs and, for these advances to be realized, similar developments in IC processing and manufacturing have been needed. For example, an IC is formed by creating one or more devices (e.g., circuit components) on a substrate using a fabrication process. As the geometry of such devices is reduced to the submicron or deep submicron level, the IC's active device density (i.e., the number of devices per IC area) and functional density (i.e., the number of interconnected devices per IC area) has become limited by the fabrication process.
Furthermore, as the IC industry has matured, the various operations needed to produce an IC may be performed at different locations by a single company or by different companies that specialize in a particular area. This further increases the complexity of producing ICs, as companies and their customers may be separated not only geographically, but also by time zones, making effective communication more difficult. For example, a first company (e.g., an IC design house) may design a new IC, a second company (e.g., an IC foundry) may provide the processing facilities used to fabricate the design, and a third company may assemble and test the fabricated IC. A fourth company may handle the overall manufacturing of the IC, including coordination of the design, processing, assembly, and testing operations.
The complexity of process steps and the time-consuming process of manufacturing advanced semiconductor devices mandates efficient processing systems and methods, specifically in the design, layout, and control of semiconductor fabrication. Layout design systems can be employed for effectively laying out the process equipment and supporting facilities for semiconductor fabrication. A graphical layout system of the manufacturing facility may be further employed for control and monitoring of semiconductor fabrication. The components of the graphical layout may include a vast amount of different components ranging from various process equipment, product stockers and transportation systems, and facilities support equipment which may include gas cylinders, exhaust lines, gas lines, chemical lines, power supplies, and vacuum pumps. The design and layout of all of the components of a manufacturing facility can benefit by proper layout to maximize the efficiency and cost of semiconductor fabrication. The graphical layout of the process equipment can provide an efficient method for control and monitoring of all components of the semiconductor fabrication. However, current graphical design, layout, monitor, and control methods do not provide a simplified system and can generally be slow and un-scalable.
Accordingly, what is needed is a system for monitoring semiconductor manufacturing that addresses the above-discussed issues.